


Arachnophobia

by damthosefandoms



Series: And they all lived happily ever after [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: (kind of), (not really whump but it is October, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Damian makes a friend, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Family Road Trip Gone Wrong, Gen, Humor, Rated T for swearing, Road Trips, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings, Whumptober 2020, depends on your definition of wrong, family road trip shenanigans, fuck you dc writers, this technically came from a whumptober prompt so I count it, timsteph if you squint really really REALLY hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26815915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damthosefandoms/pseuds/damthosefandoms
Summary: The entire family is packed into a minivan. It’s 2am, they’re going 80 miles an hour, and Damian has the audacity to point out that there’s a spider on the inside of the car window.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Damian Wayne & Tim Drake & Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Cassandra Cain
Series: And they all lived happily ever after [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959343
Comments: 48
Kudos: 390
Collections: Best of the Batfamily





	Arachnophobia

**Author's Note:**

> So Destiny sent me a list of the whumptober prompts a couple weeks back bc she’s doing that and I was reading them and I was like. You could easily make these like. Not Whump. So I spent like an hour going through and giving her examples of how you can easily misinterpret the topics in each prompt and write them as not whump. So, legally, this fic fills the Day Six Prompt of “Get it out” / “No More” / “Stop, Please” because I used two of those lines in this fic. Yeah, sure, that’s pretty arguable but hey, I can say I participated in Whumptober now. Maybe I’ll write more of my Happy-Ending-ified whumptober fics! Who knows!

“What’s that?” Damian asked, pulling out an earbud.

“What’s what?” Stephanie said, looking up from her phone. Tim remained fast asleep on her shoulder.

“That,” Damian said, pointing. He took both earbuds out and tucked them into the cupholder next to him. “The smudge on the window. I think it’s moving.”

“What are y— _oh my god!”_ Stephanie shrieked, slamming her back into the seat of the car. Tim stirred at her side, but didn’t show any signs of waking up.

“Everything okay back there?” Dick’s voice called from the front of the car. He was the lucky one, managing to call shotgun first. 

His question was met with a loud cry of, _“Move your cute, fat butt, Tim!”_ and a loud groan from Jason.

“You know, some of us are trying to _sleep,_ Stephanie,” he mumbled, pulling his hood tighter over his head. 

“Well, _I’m_ trying to avoid getting _eaten!”_ Stephanie yelled, shoving Tim off the seatbelt buckle, right into Damian. He stirred a bit in his sleep at that.

“Eaten by what, exactly?” Duke asked, turning to look over the seat at her. 

_“That!”_ Stephanie pointing accusingly at the same fuzzy, black smudge sticking to the window. 

“What is that?” Duke asked, attempting to lean forward for a closer look. Before he could, though, his seatbelt got stuck, so he turned back into his seat and tried to pull at it to fix it.

“It’s just a spider,” Damian offered, unbuckling his own seatbelt. “Move it, Timothy, I want to get a closer look.”

As Damian started to climb over him, Tim woke up, muttering something that sounded vaguely like, “What’s going on?” 

He turned to look at Stephanie, and followed her gaze towards the window. 

_“Shit!”_ Tim yelled, suddenly wide awake. He jumped backwards in fear and shoved Damian against the wall of the car.

Now Stephanie wasn’t the only one panicking. 

“You two are chickens,” Damian said, squeezing his way past his brother and friend, taking Stephanie’s seat on the other side of the car. In the process, he accidentally knocked his foot into Jason’s head. 

“That’s _it,”_ Jason threatened. “I’m coming back there.” 

He reached for his seatbelt to unbuckle it, but stopped when Cass put her hand on his arm. 

“Stop, _please,”_ she said, frowning at her brother. “You’ll just make things worse.” 

Jason mumbled something and leaned back to sulk in his seat, and Cass turned her attention back to helping Duke get his seatbelt unstuck. Apparently, she was completely disinterested in helping calm the chaos in the backseat of the minivan.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stephanie yelled, practically sitting on Tim’s lap at this point in an effort to get away from the spider.

“Making a friend,” Damian said, holding his finger up to the window. He nudged the creepy little thing, smiling as it crawled up onto his finger. 

“Want to meet him?” Damian asked, grinning evilly as he held the eight-legged satanic little fuck out towards her. “His name is Francis.”

 _“Get it out!”_ Stephanie screamed. Tim looked like he was about to cry. 

“Quit screaming, I’m trying to drive,” Bruce yelled, glancing up at the rear-view mirror, trying to get a quick glimpse into the chaos. “What the hell’s going on back there?” 

“Nothing, Father!” Damian said.

“Bullshit!” Tim yelled angrily. “Bruce, Damian’s torturing us!”

“Bruce, do something!” Stephanie cried, but to no avail.

Bruce rolled his eyes. 

“Damian’s been trained in the art of torture,” he said. “If he were really doing that, I think we’d know.”

“Yeah, there’d be a lot more blood,” Jason muttered, and Dick reached back, smacking his brother’s knee. Jason started to try to smack him back, but both of them stopped when they saw Cass’ look.

Dick sighed and said, “B, keep your eyes on the road. I’ll handle this.”

He turned around in his seat, trying to get a better look. “Damian, are you torturing Tim and Steph?”

“Of course not, Richard! I’m not a psychopath!”

“That’s arguable,” Duke muttered, finally getting his seatbelt to let him relax. “Haven’t you murdered like, a thousand people?”

 _“I haven’t killed so much as an ant in the last three years!_ Besides, you didn’t even _know_ me then! That’s irrelevant!” 

Damian swung his hands wildly as he argued, then froze.

Tim and Stephanie both shared a look of pure horror. 

“Damian… please tell me you didn’t.”

“I, uh—”

“Damian, w-where’s Francis?”

Damian gulped. “I… think he’s gone.”

“It-it’s the jumping kind,” Stephanie said. “It could be _anywhere_ now.” 

“But where _is_ —”

 _“Motherfucker!”_ Jason yelled, jumping so much that his head slammed into the car’s ceiling.

“It’s on my leg! _It’s on my leg!”_ Jason yelled, kicking his leg wildly. 

The tiny black blur flew off Jason’s pant leg, landing directly on Dick’s hand. He barely even noticed it, instead choosing to try to calm the panic.

Then the spider jumped right onto Bruce’s cheek.

Jason, ever the grudge-holder, smiled wide enough make the Joker jealous.

“I’ve got it!” Jason unblocked his seatbelt, climbed forward, and gleefully smacked Bruce across the face. 

The car swerved to the left, and everyone save Cass and Duke were thrown to the side. Limbs were flying everywhere. Damian, Tim, and Stephanie ended up all piled on top of each other. 

_“Jason Peter!”_ Bruce yelled, spinning around to glare at him after getting control of the car. He pulled over to the side of the road. About seven different people had beeped at him while driving past. 

“Uh-oh,” Duke said, glancing at Cass. They were in trouble now.

“What the hell were you _thinking?”_ Bruce yelled.

“C’mon, old man, surely you can’t blame me for trying to save you from the big, scary, monster! I’m just trying to help.” Jason frowned at his father. 

Bruce glared at him for a full minute, then took a deep breath, and turned back to look through the windshield. Blue and red lights flashed in the distance.

“Everyone buckle up,” Bruce growled in his most serious Batman voice. _“Now.”_

All the kids scrambled back into their seats, pulling their seatbelts on as the sirens got louder. 

“Wait a second,” Dick muttered, leaning in to look at Bruce. “There’s no spider guts on your cheek, B.”

“What?” Jason said, confused. He looked down at his hands. “I could’ve sworn I—oh no.”

He gazed over to Tim, still stuck in the middle in the way back of the van. 

“What?” Tim said. He looked all around, but found nothing useful—just Damian digging around for his earbuds, and… “Stephanie, what’s wrong?” 

Stephanie didn’t respond as much as try to scoot even further away from him. 

Cass popped her head up over the chair. “Don’t move,” she whispered.

Tim blinked. “Cass? What are you..."

He sighed. "It’s on my face, isn’t it?”

His sister responded by punching him directly in the nose.

“Got it,” Cass said, smiling. “Dick, pass me the first aid kit? Tim might need some ice.”

 _“Might?”_ Tim yelled, but his now-bloody nose made it sound more like “bite.”

Damian just glared at him. “Father, Cassandra killed Francis,” he complained. “Now what am I supposed to annoy these two idiots with?”

“You’re _not.”_ Bruce muttered. Then there was a knock on the window. Bruce motioned for the kids to zip it, and then rolled the window down. He put on his best Brucie Wayne smile.

“How can I help you, officer?”

**Author's Note:**

> Look I really hate spiders ok dont @ me they’re terrifying and those jumping ones are the WORST I hate them I hate them I hate them 
> 
> (ps hmu on tumblr @damthosefandoms)


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